Almost There August 26, 2010

Getting ready for a trip out of town can sometimes be a frenzied task, especially when it includes Knitting Projects To-Go.

I’m trying to wrap up and prepare a couple of goodies to take up north to Michigan. Here’s my Twist cardi ready to be seamed, then hooded. I’m hoping to do all the seaming and buttonbands once I land in the country (visualizing now sitting on the porch swing, ribbing…)

I set it out flat like this so we could see a wonderful phenom characteristic of piece knitting.

Here you can see that the side edges and armhole edges of the Front pieces mimic the Back.

How do they correspond? Taking a look you can see:

The Right Front has the same shaping as the Left Back Edge.

The Left Front has the same shaping as the Right Back Edge.

From the Chic Knits Archive:

How to continue and match the pieces of a sweater? Like many of you, I make a working copy of the pattern then do Mark-Up. In the margins, I keep track of rows in various places (length of ribbing, length to underarm, length to shoulder, total length, etc) as reference points for the entire sweater.

If you notice, sweaters knit in pieces already have this functionality built in. They usually start you out with the Back Piece first. Here you will find the Rosetta Stone for the Fronts. Many times, knitters email me with shaping questions about cardigan construction and I always refer them back to the Back.

Now, this requires a slight leap of imagination, because the Back, as is, is the Mirror Image of the other pieces and not the doppelganger…

All of the shaping information one needs to make the Body and Armhole areas of the Fronts are already accomplished on the Back.

So, if a pattern gives instructions as: “Continue as for Left Front, reversing all shaping. Substitute SSK for K2TOG and vice versa as needed, using Back piece for reference, as needed”

Spread the Back piece out and read it like a map! :)